Daniel Woods flashed Compass North (8B+) in October and here is the old news article including a short interview.

Eva Hammelmüller has done La ligne claire (8c+) in St Léger. In the 8a ranking game, the 22-year-old is #2 counting only five redpoints and five onsights or flashes.

Can you tell us more about your ascent?
After not doing any lead for more than a month, the trip to St. Léger was all about getting back into lead mode. As “la ligne claire” has really cruxy sections with good rests in between, I decided to try this route, hoping that my endurance would be sufficient. 9 tries (and an epic fight) later, I found myself on top of the route - such a beautiful line and a really cool start into 2023!

I focused a lot on projecting last year, so I tried some routes graded 9a but didn‘t succeed in climbing them yet…. thus, I climbed quite a few routes that I can either OS or send in few attempts, but hardly any hard routes.

4sport.ua has collected the 9a+ or harder statistics and in total 46 climbers reached this level in 2022. For the last 15 years, we have seen great development and in 2021 50 climbers did at least one 9a+ or harder route.

In total, there are now some 256 routes 9a+ and harder out of which;
83 Spain
47 France
22 Italy
21 USA
12 Norway, 11 Switzerland, 10 Austria and Germany

Interestingly, when it comes to the number of climbers per country having climbed 9a+ or harder, the USA is #1 with 27, followed by France at 21 and Spain at 20.

Štěpán Volf has done Sanjski par extension (9a) in Osp/Misja Pec, although being partly wet. “Finally this big dream of mine became reality. I was dreaming about climbing this beauty since my first trip to Mišja Peč 🇸🇮 8 years ago, when I was trying my first 8a. Still can’t belive I did it even tho it was wet 💦. Somehow skipping the Boulder after first part with one long move was a bit easier. 10 more tries after first part. No kneepad.

From his scorecard we can see that during the last years, he has mainly been focusing on bouldering, in spite of having done his first 9a two years ago. In 2022, he flashed his first two 8A+ boulders and did five out of his first six 8B+.

What is your 2023 ambition?
To climb an 8C boulder. Few weeks ago I tried Warrior (8C) from Martin Stranik and was pretty close to sending. So I hope it will came down during winter.

Pietro Vidi has done in Margalef. Will Bosi did the FA in 2021 but originally it was an old Dani Andrada project.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
I arrived in Spain wanting to climb short routes in Laboratori but the heat forced us to climb in La Capella. I checked Last night on the first day of the trip and managed to send it quite quickly after finding my own beta as Will Bosi’s beta was just impossible for me.

The route climbs better than expected. Even though it is chipped it offers some really fun moves. I’m satisfied to have finally ticked a 9a but I’m definitely more psyched to come back to Ticino to try some hard stuff!

What do you have in mind in Ticino?
I was trying Primitivo (8C) before leaving, but also Forgotten Gem (8C) is high on the list!

Stefano Ghisolfi does his possibly hardest boulder ever, Goldfish Trombone (8B+) in Bishop (CA).

Oriane Bertone has during a ten days trip to Rocklands done three 8A's, Oral Office (8A+) and . "Finally the main project of this short trip comes true! I had tried "Armed Response" several times in the past, but I did not yet have the physical capacities for this "very physical style" project (8A+ hard or 8B soft? I don't know). Ten days of climbing, for a little less than two weeks in Rocklands, are over. Shorter than usual trip for us. I left some harder project for next year ;-)".

Alex Ventajas, who in the last 18 months has done ten routes 9a and harder, has made the FA of El Osteopata 9a in Mula.

Can you tell us more about the first ascent?
I can’t imagine a better way to start the new year. The route is a project bolted in 2014-2015 by my friends Rafi and Oscar. I gave it a try back then, but it seemed too hard for me. For the Christmas holidays, I went back to Murcia to visit my family and I felt motivated again after seeing some videos of other local climbers trying the route.

It’s a quite “old school” line: a technical roof climbing, with chipped pockets, very small feet, and a lot of body tension. There’s no place for mistakes and saving as much energy as possible in every section is crucial. Even if it’s not a natural line, all the boulder problems are great climbing and I enjoyed refining every detail to find the perfect sequence to send the route! I went to the cave for four days and I finally managed to send it on my ninth attempt. About the grade, I think it’s 9a. I hope other climbers will repeat it soon and give their opinion too! After the Santuario sector was shut down, this could be the region’s first 9a.

"Project Big is a line that I bolted in 2013. It has always seemed like the most improbable part of the Flatanger (Norway) cave, looking just too intimidating to be climbed. Bolting it and finding out that there were actually holds was just mind-blowing, yet I was still too intimidated actually to start trying it for many years! At the same time, I knew that line was too perfect just to let it go. I was sure that one day I just had to climb it."